On arrival at Stragon, the Liberty was assigned a stationary orbit and instructed to hold its position pending an inspection.
Dedrick turned to Ross Posey in the co-pilot’s chair and said, “We’re going to be boarded. Make sure everything is properly stowed. These Stragori officials are picky about every little detail. One container out of place could hold us up here for days.”
“Not to mention what they’ll do if they discover that our passenger is traveling with forged documents,” Posey remarked. “I sure hope you’re right about this Barry Novak. If her creds don’t hold up, we’ll all three of us be fried.”
“They’ll hold up,” Dedrick told him. “Novak was my Uncle Dennis’s fixer for years, and Dennis Forrand only employed the best.”
“In that case, no offense, but we’ve all gotten about thirteen standard years older since Forrand died, so I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that Novak’s skills are still as sharp as they used to be. I don’t relish the thought of saying, ‘I told you so’ from the adjoining cell of a Stragori detention center. And now, if you’ll excuse me, Captain, I have some hatches to batten down before the Directorate’s bureaucracy descends upon us.” And with an emphatic nod of his head, he got up to leave.
Olivia had been standing just outside the cockpit door, listening to this exchange. She stood aside to let Posey pass, then came forward and took his vacated seat. Dedrick glanced up briefly as she sat down, but his thoughts were obviously elsewhere.
“I understand why he’s worried,” she began, “and I want to assure you—”
“He’s not just worried, he’s smacked off at me for accepting this job in the first place,” Dedrick said. He swiveled his chair to face her. “When Posey signed on as my first mate, we made a pact. We’re Fleet-trained, and we both retired with honor, me from the Fleet and him from Space Installation Security. We agreed that no matter what happened, the Liberty would stay firmly on the right side of the law.”
“And by helping me, you’ve broken your promise to him, and now you’re both angry. I’m sorry, Gael. I never would have put you in such a difficult situation—”
“You didn’t. Novak made the request, realizing that I couldn’t turn it down.”
“Because you knew who to thank for your acquittal on charges of data tampering six years ago?”
“Partly. I did recognize you on the tribunes’ dais at my hearing. Mainly, though, Novak had seen how far I was willing to go to protect my family. My connection to Dennis Forrand is pretty much common knowledge, and so is his protégée Juno Vargas’s. But very few are aware that Drew and Olivia Townsend are his grandchildren. Neither one of you would be safe for long if Forrand’s enemies ever twigged to that. Novak knew he couldn’t trust anyone outside the family with your escape. So, he came to me.”
“He told you about Drew and me?”
“He didn’t have to. Of course, he didn’t realize that at the time.”
“But how did you—?”
“Let’s just say that Dennis Forrand did not take his secrets with him when he died, and leave it at that. Meanwhile, you’re nearly at your destination, Ms. Townsend. Are you ready for this?”
As if on cue, a small ship popped up on the sensor screen.
“Martian vessel Liberty, prepare to be boarded for inspection,” came a sharp-edged voice over the commlink.
Dedrick pressed the button to reply to the hail. “Stragori shuttle, this is Captain Gael Dedrick. Our Terran passenger is ready to debark. Is it your intention to transport her to the surface for immigration processing, or will you be doing it aboard ship?”
“I don’t handle immigration. My instructions are to conduct a full inspection of your craft, its cargo if any, and all passengers and crew. Based on that, I decide what will happen next.”
His face darkening, Dedrick inquired, “Is this now standard procedure, sir? Because the last time I was here, it wasn’t.”
“It’s standard for all alien ships in Stragori space, by order of the Directorate.” They could practically hear his chin rising as he spoke.
Dedrick’s lips compressed, evidently holding back words that could make the situation worse. After a beat, he replied, “Very well, then, we’ll await your arrival.” He closed the link and turned to meet Olivia’s questioning gaze. “It sounds as though they’re determined to have their civil war and they don’t want any more of us interfering with it.”
Her eyes widened momentarily. “You overheard my discussion with Drew?”
“Couldn’t help it. These are close quarters. If you’re concerned, we still have time to abort your mission. They won’t be here for another twenty or so standard minutes.”
“No,” she decided. “We’re Forrands. We stand our ground.”
“Then,” he said, returning his seat to the piloting position, “I’d better prepare the docking portal. Wouldn’t want them to think we’re not cooperating.”
Once the umbilical walkway was sealed, Dedrick escorted Olivia and her baggage down to the boarding deck. The inspector stepped through the portal to meet them. He was a tall, thin man with watery eyes and very little hair.
“This is your passenger?” he snapped.
“Yes,” she replied, “I’m—”
“Speak when you’re spoken to, please. It will make things go much faster that way.”
Olivia and Dedrick exchanged disbelieving looks.
“Her name?”
Gael replied, “Olivia Townsend.”
“Documents?” He was looking at Dedrick, apparently expecting to receive them from the ship’s captain. Olivia had to clear her throat to get him to notice that she was the one offering them to him. With a dissatisfied, “Hmph!” he snatched the datawafer from her hand, adding to Dedrick, “She didn’t surrender this to you on boarding?”
“No,” she told him. “Why should I?”
“I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind,” he informed her haughtily, then turned his back on her while he slipped the wafer into a device he’d pulled from his pocket.
“So, Ms. Olivia Townsend of New Chicago, Americas, Earth,” he said, reading from the screen. “This says you graduated from Fairhaven University with a degree in the laws of Earth and a sub-degree in urban management. This combination spells politician to me, and we have too many of those on Stragon already.”
“I’m a licensed, practicing advocate,” she said. “I speak for those who can’t speak up for themselves.”
“We have too many of those as well, and they’re a tremendous pain in the—”
“Well, what sorts of jobs are available to me, then?” she broke in.
With a hint of a smile, he replied, “Terran cuisine is becoming popular on the mainland, so there’s a demand for all kinds of food establishment workers — cooks, servers, table cleaners… Also for child care givers, transportation facilitators, and agricultural laborers. And they’re crying for maintenance and custodial staff on the island. You don’t like any of those? Then tell me, what else can you do?”
This had gone far enough. She drew herself up, gray eyes cold as ice, and skipped to plan B. “I can get you fired if you don’t start showing me some respect. I’m a Forrand.”
His expression became smug. “Really! I’m just shaking in my shoes. Have you any idea how many people have come here claiming to be part of a powerful Stragori family? Too damn many, as far as I’m concerned. So if you think—” He halted abruptly, apparently receiving a message through one of his cybernetic implants.
As Gael and Olivia watched, his grin evaporated, and his face lost several shades of color.
“Bad news?” Dedrick ventured.
“It — ah — it seems both your identities have been authenticated by the Directorate, and I am ordered to escort Ms. Townsend down to the reception center on the planetary surface, immediately.”
“So, you won’t be inspecting my ship?”
“I’ve been told that’s not necessary. If I’ve said or done anything to offend you, please permit me to offer my deepest apologies.”
“You have, and you may,” said Dedrick. As Olivia passed him, carrying her suitcase, he put a hand on her arm and murmured, “You don’t know what’s waiting for you down there.”
“I’ll be all right, Gael,” she replied. “Quite frankly, this is the first time in my life that I’ve been grateful for the Stragori intellinet.”
—— «» ——
Seen from the air, the spaceport looked like a child’s toy — a series of geometric shapes strung together, all with smooth reflective surfaces in pastel colors. Olivia stepped off the shuttle and was met on the tarmac by a matched pair of stern-faced, uniformed officers. For a moment she wondered whether they were about to arrest her. Then they smiled (in unison, with disturbing effect), and one of them said in a chasm-deep voice, “Welcome to Stragon, Ms. Townsend. Your great-grandparents are waiting for you inside. This way, please.”
The officers ushered her through two sets of sliding doors, past long curving lines of people waiting with documentation in hand, then through a third door and into an austerely furnished space that reminded her of the High Council meeting chambers on Earth. At least, it would have if the walls had been transparent and the table and chairs made of wood instead of the other way around.
At the head of the table, looking like monarchs on thrones — or like pieces on a chess board — sat a man and a woman with identically styled white hair and smooth features. These were her great-grandparents? Except for the hair, they didn’t look a day over fifty. Then again, she reminded herself, they were Stragori. Nestor Quan claimed to be nearly a hundred and eighty years old, but he appeared younger than many of the senior Councilors she’d known on Earth.
The Forrands in front of her were clad in tightly wrapped garments fashioned from a lustrous fabric. The woman’s was a delicate violet color and the man’s a lightly toasted orange, and their faces wore expressions that were simultaneously benign and expectant.
“Step closer, child,” said the woman. “Let us see you more clearly.”
Her senses on high alert, Olivia approached them. Their seats had no visible legs. Evidently equipped with antigravity, they rose slowly as she drew near, until both Forrands were looking down on her from nearly a meter in the air. In response, Olivia elevated her chin and stared right back at them.
The woman leaned forward and narrowed her gaze. She sat like this for the space of two breaths, peering at Olivia as though inspecting her for dust, then turned and said to the man, “There. Around the nose and in the shape of the mouth. Do you mark it?”
He nodded slowly. “Definitely a descendant of Gervais Forrand. And if she has that much of him, she may also have inherited his gene for longevity. We’ll have to test for it to be certain, of course.”
“And if it turns out that I have this gene,” Olivia asked, refusing to be left out of the conversation, “does that mean I’ll live another two hundred years?”
“That is hard to predict, my dear,” the woman told her. “You’re a hybrid, after all. But it would certainly extend the productive adult portion of your lifespan. Oh, my!” she exclaimed, catching herself up. “I am so sorry! You’ve just stepped off a shuttle. We haven’t properly introduced ourselves. And now we must whisk you away to meet your — how many times great, Gilles?”
“I haven’t been keeping count,” he grumbled. “Just call him an ancestor, Linda. She’ll get the idea.”
“Will my grandfather be joining us?” Olivia asked.
“No,” Linda replied. “We aren’t sure where he is right now, or how to contact him. He told us to expect you, but Gervais was the one who first realized you’d arrived. He sent us to meet you here.”
“But Dennis Forrand is on Stragon?” Olivia persisted.
“Oh, yes. I confess, we were somewhat surprised when Dennis joined us here only twelve years after our own migration, but he assured us that he had left the project in capable hands. And events have demonstrated that he was right.”
“He’s told us how proud he is of you and your brother,” Gilles added. “Proud of what you’ve accomplished together.”
Now Olivia was confused. “Together?”
“Starting the Corvou war like that, and using it to cut the legs out from under the Relocation Authority. It was a stroke of genius,” he declared. “And now you’re going to help us do the same thing on Stragon.”
With blinding clarity, Olivia finally understood. “You’re radicals.”
Linda’s laughter was a descending series of half notes, sung in a soprano voice. “No, child. We’re Forrands. We don’t fall into someone else’s line. We create the path and let others choose to take it.”
“Are you saying that you’re behind this civil war?” Olivia demanded.
Smiling indulgently, Linda turned to Gilles. “Esta minona.”
“Esta juverna,” he replied, sounding a little disgruntled. “Ma elva apprentay.”
The Stragori language sounded very similar to one of Earth’s ancient tongues. French? Español?
“And now, come,” said Linda, speaking Standard once more. “We really mustn’t keep Gervais waiting any longer.”
As though of their own accord, Gilles’s and Linda’s transparent chairs floated downward, permitting them to dismount. A lot of things floated on this world, Olivia noted, including the cartridge-shaped transportation modules tethered in a row outside the door of the terminal. As Linda scrutinized each one in turn — checking for dust, perhaps? — Olivia turned in place beneath a broad blue sky, letting her gaze sweep the area. She half-expected to see daylight beneath the buildings that had been connected end to end to make up the spaceport, but they all appeared to be securely planted on the ground. In every other direction, the terrain was perfectly flat and green all the way to the horizon, where angular structures jutted upward, glinting in the sun like polished blades stabbing the air from beneath the soil.
Linda had finally found a module she liked. “Come, child! He’s waiting for us.”
Once they were aboard and moving, Gilles sank into silence. Meanwhile, Olivia’s great-grandmother became quite chatty and informative. There was a reason for the streamlined profile and opaque hull of a Stragori transportation module, she explained. The planet was riddled with a complicated network of above- and below-ground express tunnels. They regularly merged and intersected with one another to ensure speedy delivery of goods and passengers to every part of the mainland. Bullet-shaped cars shot along these tunnels at top speed, their routes and timing coordinated by an artificial intelligence housed in a hackproof server somewhere inside the Directorate.
Hackproof? Maybe. Or maybe not. Olivia filed the information away for possible future use.
Only a couple of minutes later, she felt the module begin to slow down. Finally, it came to a halt, and the hatch in its side unsealed with a hiss and slid open.
Gervais Forrand apparently dwelled underground. The three passengers stepped out onto a platform paved with multicolored tiles. It was surrounded by concealed light sources that shone down from every direction, creating an island of brightness amid the surrounding gloom.
As she debarked, Olivia’s mind flashed back to her arrival in Veggieville, at the plaza where the MPVs stopped to let off passengers. Now, as then, she squared her shoulders and shook off the feeling of being lost in a strange place. She wasn’t that teenaged girl anymore, and she wasn’t alone. Whether the Forrands were her friends or her enemies was a question yet to be answered. Until it was, she told herself, she would consider herself to be undercover — observing, and listening, and scooping up every bit of intel that came her way.
As though someone had flipped a switch, it was now Linda’s turn to be quiet and Gilles’s to be talkative.
“Hard to believe that it’s just past noon up top, isn’t it?” he remarked abruptly. “But perpetual midnight is the way the Directorate likes it. This way, Olivia.” Without a second’s hesitation, he set off into the darkness, forcing her to hurry after him.
He strode unerringly to a patch of wall that glowed blue as he approached. He pressed his hand to it and waited. A moment later the wall spoke to him in a soft alto voice.
“Fideto. Entray.”
A door materialized in front of them, then slid noiselessly away. Gilles jerked his head toward the opening, signaling that she was to follow him through it. She glanced behind her, expecting to see Linda, but the other woman was nowhere in sight.
Stifling her unease, Olivia stepped through the doorway and found herself in a smallish room, facing a screen that took up one entire wall. This was evidently how they were going to have their meeting: face to face but not in person.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now we wait,” came the response.
“Is Gervais in the Directorate?”
“He’s the second Forrand to receive a directorship,” Gilles confirmed brusquely.
“And is it unusual to have more than one director in a family?”
“Extremely. Only three families have been so honored. And only one hybrid has ever been granted an audience with a director — you.”
That sounded suspiciously like a warning to behave herself. Olivia’s hackles rose. She was forty-eight years old and they persisted in treating her like a child. From their perspective, perhaps, it was understandable, but that didn’t make it any less annoying.
As she was opening her mouth to make her feelings known, the screen activated. First it glowed green, then it morphed into a storm of pixels, and finally it settled into the image of a man sitting behind a desk. For a moment, words escaped her. This couldn’t possibly be Gervais Forrand. Like Gilles and Linda, he didn’t look much older than she was.
“Are you sure he’s the right person?” she whispered to Gilles.
“Of course, I am!” the man declared. “Are you sure you are the right person?”
Olivia drew herself up and gave him Juno’s frostiest stare. “That depends. Who am I supposed to be?”
Gervais chuckled. “She’s got spirit, Gilles.” To Olivia, he replied, “According to your grandfather, you’re the best choice to lead the uprising.”
“Wait a minute. Are you saying the Directorate wants a war?”
“Neh comprenta,” said Gilles in that same alien tongue.
“Then let’s help her to understand.” Addressing her again, Gervais said, “Olivia, is it?” She nodded. “What do you see when you look at me?”
“I see the image of a man.”
“Exactly. This is an image of the man I used to be. It’s a memory of myself in corporeal form, at a time before my consciousness was uploaded to the Directorate.”
Olivia inhaled sharply. “The Directorate is a computer? But we thought—”
He leaned back in his chair, his gaze piercing. “I know what you thought. What are you thinking now?”
“That you’ve found a way not only to live forever, but also to hold onto your power while doing it,” she replied.
He paused, then explained, “We developed this technology hundreds of years ago. After much debate, it was decided not to make it publicly available. Rather, it would be used exclusively for preserving the greatest and wisest leaders among us, so that they could continue to guide our society. Whenever a worthy individual emerged, a directorship was offered. Most candidates leaped at the chance to continue governing the planet indefinitely, keeping the peace and ensuring that the Stragori remained on the best possible path to the future.”
“That sounds very noble, and it’s perfect in theory,” she remarked. “But if you’re asking me to foment a revolution for you, then I’m guessing things haven’t worked out that well in practice. Sort of like the changes Adam Vargas made to the Relocation Authority on Earth.” All at once, something clicked into place in Olivia’s mind, and she realized: “And the Reformation! It was a dry run, wasn’t it? Testing the feasibility of something you actually wanted to do here.”
Gilles and Gervais shared a look. Gilles’s expression appeared a bit strained, she thought.
“Dennis was right,” Gervais declared. “She’s a bright one.”
“The larger the Directorate became, the more power it gathered and the more control it exercised over the lives of the Stragori population,” said Gilles. “Like the Relocation Authority. Early on, that wasn’t a bad thing. But once the number of directors exceeded one hundred, they expanded their influence to include Earth. That was when the problems began.”
“Immortality wasn’t the blessing everyone had anticipated,” Gervais continued. “The directors were doers. It was why they’d been chosen in the first place. But they needed to keep busy in order to stay sane, and things ran in repeating cycles. From generation to generation, the same problems, the same mistakes, the same obsessive behaviors for the same wrong reasons — it was maddening. Most of the oldest among us simply gave up. They firewalled themselves and retreated permanently into their memories.
“The rest of the Directorate worked that much harder to break the cycle. To change the pattern. They took on more responsibility and imposed ever stricter control, until even they were forced to recognize that they might have gone too far. Unfortunately, by then it had also become clear how much danger Earth was in from the Great Council. Drastic action became necessary to preserve Humanity. Almost without exception, these measures were unpopular on Stragon.”
“So, helping us to survive has split your people into factions,” Olivia summed up. “And now you want us to do what, exactly?”
Locking eyes with her, Gervais leaned forward across his desk. “We can accomplish a great deal from inside this machine. The intellinet keeps us abreast of everything that’s happening on-world and allows us to communicate with the flesh-and-blood workers at the various government agencies. We can issue orders and instructions, and we command a loyal military that makes sure they are obeyed.
“However, we have limited control over the mainland servers. We can work within the protected boundaries of our own programming, to modify the virtual world in which we live, for example, but we cannot effect physical change outside of it. And, as some of us have learned from experience, we can’t simply delete ourselves. Corporeal hands are required in order to upload specific files and subroutines.” He gave her a look that instantly shortened her breath.
“Subroutines. Are you talking about viruses?”
“Whatever it takes to corrupt the server and put the Directorate beyond recovery,” said Gervais.
“But you’re part of the Directorate,” she pointed out. “Can you back yourselves up?”
“Those of us who wish to have already done so, and the backups have been safely stored off-site. You won’t be killing anyone who does not want to die.”
At the sound of the K-word, Olivia went cold all over. Back on Earth, she had promised herself that Juno Vargas would be the last hit she ever ordered. Her whole purpose for being on Stragon was to support an op designed to prevent bloodshed. And now, “You’re asking me to commit mass murder,” she protested. “I don’t care if they’re willing. I won’t do it!”
Gervais leaned even closer, projecting an intensity that almost leaped off the screen at her. “We’re asking you to help us save our people, just as we helped you save yours from annihilation by the Corvou. We’re convinced that ending the Directorate can break down the barrier between the factions and in so doing avert a Stragori civil war. But if the rift is ever to heal, then it’s important that neither side be perceived to be responsible for our deaths.”
Olivia’s chin rose, straightening her spine in the process. “You want Humanity to be the threat from outside that reunites your planet?”
“Not all of Humanity. Just a small group of Terran agents, who will conveniently blow themselves up while trying to escape — or so it will appear. Dennis will help you orchestrate that. It’s a deception he perfected while on Earth.”
“I gather the revolution you mentioned earlier is meant to provide a cover for that mission?” she said stiffly.
“Yes. Revolution, protest, call it whatever you want. It will be a wholly justified reaction by the Terrans on the island. The groundwork has already been laid, but we’ll leave the details to you.”
Now her mind was in overdrive, speculating as to what might trigger a Terran revolt on alien soil. “I need to think about this. And I’ll need more intel.”
“She suspects that we might be drawing her into a radical trap,” Gilles translated.
A faint smile slid across Gervais’s face. “And she’s right to be cautious. We’ve given her a great deal to consider.” To Olivia, he added, “Will three days be enough time for you to verify what I’ve said and come to a decision?”
“I believe so.”
“Then let us talk again once you’ve made up your mind. Gilles and Linda know how to reach me.”
“There’s one more thing,” she said. “I’ll need to speak with Dennis Forrand. Can you locate him from the intel on the servers?”
“I can. But he may not wish to meet with you.”
“Tell him that if I don’t get answers to my questions, you won’t get an answer to yours.”
Gervais’s eyebrows shot up. “In that case, I’ll just have to persuade him, won’t I?”
The screen went dark. As she and Gilles retraced their steps back to the transportation module, he leaned closer and whispered, “Dennis taught you well, my dear.”
—— «» ——
So, the Directorate wasn’t a group of flesh-and-blood people, as she’d earlier believed. It was a massive computer, containing the uploaded consciousnesses of more than a hundred Stragori leaders, many of them insane and, apparently, most of them suicidal. It explained a lot, Olivia reflected darkly, as the mode of transportation she’d decided to think of as a “bullet car” carried the three of them through the network of tunnels to the Forrand family home.
Gilles had fallen back into silence, which Linda seemed compelled to fill with amiable chatter. It would be so nice having a guest in the house, she declared. Everyone would want to meet her. They could issue invitations and order up some treats. It would bring all the cousins together. It would be fun.
Olivia listened with half an ear. Meanwhile, her thoughts were on things more important than tea parties — and much more dangerous.
If she went along with Gervais’s plan, Gilles and Linda would help her, she was certain. Would Dennis? He seemed to be avoiding the rest of his family, making it difficult to determine exactly where he stood. That was one of the questions she would need answered before she could commit to anything. She also wanted to know precisely what Gervais had meant by “the groundwork for a Terran revolt”.
Once she had spoken with Dennis Forrand, Olivia’s next order of business would be to go to the island and find Angeli, hopefully without exposing her as an EIS agent. Olivia worried about that. As Chief of Intelligence, she’d never actually gone into the field. She’d sat at a safe distance from the action, behind an official title, receiving reports from operatives who were embedded where intel was likely to be collected or exchanged. If a contact’s cover was blown, it was always someone else’s fault. However, now that she was Olivia Townsend again, things were going to be quite different.
Juno Vargas had negotiated the halls of power on Earth in the ways that Forrand had taught her, playing the political game and pulling strings when necessary to ensure that his master plan came to fruition. But Olivia Townsend had shed Juno’s clout along with her baggage. Worse, she was now on an alien world. She had no personal influence here. Olivia would have to rely on her blood connection with the Forrand family to provide protection while she did whatever needed to be done … once she’d figured out just what that was. It wouldn’t be an easy puzzle to solve, regardless of what the various Forrands chose to tell her.
The Reformation was a fait accompli, and her responsibility to Dennis Forrand was over. However, another puppeteer might be trying to control her, now that she was, figuratively, within his grasp on Stragon. Gervais Forrand was apparently just as much a scheming, manipulative bastard as her grandfather was.
And if she refused his proposal, what then? Would he simply let her go?
Turn her or terminate her. She smothered that thought the instant it reared its head. Then she reconsidered. What she needed was an ally in the Forrand family. Apparently, Olivia had plenty of relatives on this world. Would there be any among them that she could trust?
Around and around her thoughts revolved, like an ever-darkening carousel. Meanwhile, Linda was still enthusing about the party she planned to host the following evening.
The bullet car let them out below ground, on a platform very similar to the one at the Directorate. Once again, a blue square lit up, a handprint was registered, and a portion of wall slid aside to admit them into a medium-sized, pale green area with no doors or windows. The room was rectangular. Centered at the top of each wall was a small grate, for air circulation, Olivia guessed. And embedded in one of the vertical surfaces was something resembling the light screen at the Directorate.
Gilles led the way to the middle of this space, then announced loudly, “Living room for three!”
As Olivia watched, open-mouthed, the room responded. It shimmered all around them, then settled into shapes. A long black leatherish sofa, an overstuffed dark green easy chair, a sprinkling of low wooden tables with built-in shelves and compartments. Against one wall, the large light screen remained. Against another, an artistic arrangement of framed pictures had appeared. Against a third, a tall, plastiplex display case held a collection of what appeared to be awards and trophies. Against the fourth, she saw an Earth-style door (non-functioning, she suspected) and a fall of drapery, probably meant to suggest a window. It had all materialized in a matter of seconds, leaving her at a loss for words.
Gilles chuckled. “You can sit down if you wish,” he assured her. “Everything in this room is solid. We use holographic technology, programming it to create the environment we’re most comfortable with. It’s costly to run, so not every habitat is equipped with it. But it means we can live in just two rooms instead of ten, repurposing them as necessary. On Stragon, unlike on Earth, the wealthiest among us leave the smallest footprint.”
“This was the living room of our first home together on Earth, before we built the mansion in Millbrook Enclave,” said Linda.
“But what if you need privacy?” Olivia asked.
“Ah! That’s what the second room is for,” she replied. “Let me show you.”
Linda walked over to the display case. She pressed her hand to the blue square that had appeared beside it, and a moment later, a section of wall dissolved into shimmering air and was gone. Peering through the opening, Olivia saw two Earth-style sliding doors, angled at sixty degrees to each other. Together with the exit from the living room, they created a tiny, triangular vestibule.
“Gilles subdivided and reprogrammed this part of the house before we left to meet you at the spaceport,” she explained. “The bedroom on the left is yours. It just needs your voiceprint. Put your hand flat on the door and say your name.”
Olivia complied. Nothing happened. She turned puzzled eyes on her great-grandmother.
“Now tell it what you want to do,” Linda instructed her. “Say, ‘Olivia wants to enter,’ or ‘Olivia wants to exit,’ and it will let you through but no one else. If you wish to entertain company, say, ‘Olivia plus one’ instead of just your name. Why don’t you try that last one out?”
There was a note of urgency in Linda’s voice. Her curiosity now aroused, Olivia repeated, “Olivia plus one wants to enter.” Again, nothing seemed to happen.
“Now try to touch the door,” Linda said.
Warily, Olivia extended a hand and watched her fingers disappear into the door. She wiggled them. When they met no resistance, she realized: this had to be a holographic projection. Olivia stepped through the image without further hesitation and found herself in a bedroom that would have been identical to the one she’d occupied in the Forrand mansion on Earth, except for the light screen that took up most of a wall.
Linda arrived right behind her. “Dennis helped us with some of the details. We wanted you to feel at home here for the duration of your stay. My dear,” she said, lowering her voice, “I may play the part, but don’t assume that I am in fact a fool. I know what Gervais is planning, and what he wants you to do for him, and why. If you decide to turn him down, don’t tell him — tell me, and I’ll help you however I can.”
Now Olivia was confused. “What about Gilles? Is he opposed as well?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid he’s given up. On Earth, he was a man of great influence, controlling an entire industry. Here, he feels powerless to stand against the Directorate.”
“But you don’t.”
Linda smiled. “There is more than one way to knock down a bully, child, as I’m told you well know.”
Olivia had heard this same message in different words from Isabela Bakshi back in Veggieville. Perhaps there was someone she could trust on Stragon after all.
“Linda, about this party that you want to throw for me tomorrow…”
“It was just talk, minona, for the benefit of whoever might be listening in.”
“There were mics in the bullet car?”
“Beyond the walls of this dwelling, there are mics everywhere. It’s how the Directorate stays informed. You’ll need to bear that in mind as you go about your business. And just so you know, if you should decide to remain on Stragon once that business is completed, Gilles and I would be proud to introduce you to the rest of the family.”
“What if I decide not to stay?”
“Then we will miss you, and think of you often, and hope that you’ll choose to visit us from time to time. You will always be welcome here, dear child.”
After her meeting with Drew on Daisy Hub, Olivia had resigned herself to never hearing those words again. Fighting back tears, she replied, “Thank you, Great-grandmother.”